Last year, wasn't sure what life after high school would hold. How would she know which university was right for her? Would she even have the money to go to college? The Journal's talked with Heather, now a freshman at the University of Victoria, in Canada, about prayer and how it's helped her deal with this and other situations.
What's your take on prayer? How do you pray? And why?
FOR A LONG TIME I thought, "I don't know how to pray." But I've realized that prayer isn't some complicated thing. Prayer is just the acknowledgment that God is completely in control of my life. That I'm in His care. That He loves me, and I can always depend on Him.
Some people might ask: But how can that kind of prayer make a difference? I think that's the wonderful thing about acknowledging God's presence and goodness. I've found that the more I look for God's goodness and am thankful for it—rather than focusing on feeling sick or stressed or whatever the issue may be—the more in tune I am with God. The more I think about God, the easier it is for me to see that illness, fear, situations that seem hopeless, don't have any power in my life.
Praying helps me feel close to God. It keeps me from feeling afraid. And, it's something that I can turn to whenever I need to.
You say that prayer brings you closer to God. How would you describe your relationship with Him?
GOD IS WHATEVER I NEED Him TO BE. I find God as Father, Mother, best friend. The thing I think is most reassuring is that He'll never let me down. Even with people you love, it's hard to have complete trust. There's no guarantee that they'll always be there for you. But God is always there—no matter how big or little the problem.
What I also love is that even if I've made a mistake, I can always turn back to God. His love never wavers. He never says, "Oh well. You made a bad choice. Too bad. I can't help you anymore." As my relationship with God has grown over the years, I've come to realize that He creates everything good in my life and that this goodness doesn't change. Even when things are tough, turning to God and His love gets me thinking again about that goodness and feeling its power in my life. My relationship with God is comforting, healing, transforming.
What I'm hearing from you is that Knowing God helps you know yourself—who you are as God's idea. Ultimately, that is what brings healing. Can you think of a time when you found this to be true?
ONE EXPERIENCE HAPPENED during my senior year in high school. It was the end of the year, and I had all these papers and exams. I was stressed about them, as I needed to get good marks for entry into university, and then one of my eyes started acting up. It was really painful, and I could barely open it.
From the beginning, I was praying and so was my mom. But when the pain started getting worse, I decided to ask a Christian Science practitioner to pray, too. I was pretty afraid at this point. The pain was bad, but on top of that, my imagination started running away with me. I was thinking, "What if I lose an eye?"
The practitioner was so helpful because she got me thinking about God right away. She said, "Every time your eye hurts or you want to say 'ouch,' think about what Mrs. Eddy said about your spiritual nature in 'the scientific statement of being' instead. Don't just say, 'There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. ...'See Science and Health, p. 468. Really think about the words. Get a thesaurus out and decide what each word means."
I tried to be disciplined about doing this, and the result was that the pain in my eye became less and less real to me. It was still there, but I felt a lot less scared. One of the things I kept thinking about was this: God doesn't know fear, so as His idea, I can't know it either. It's just God and me, God and His reflection, and fear doesn't even come into the equation.
Once the fear of losing an eye was gone, my eye was healed. It was so simple, and the healing happened so naturally. But what was also significant to me was that I ended up feeling better about what was going on in school, too. I'd been really worried out about this huge term paper, which was supposed to help prepare us for university. I'd just been so afraid, wondering. "How am I ever going to do this?" Once I realized that God was there and was loving me, helping me, and providing all the ideas I needed, I felt much more confident about writing the paper.
One word I've heard you mention a couple times is "fear." Can you talk some more about fear and how you deal with it?
IN PART, I think it goes back to having a realtionship with God. When you realize that that relationship never, never stops, it takes a huge load off your shoulders. You realize you're never alone, never without an answer. You can never be in a situation where there isn't a way out or where God's not right there caring for you.
For me, the best way of dealing with fear is to take whatever it is I'm afraid of and replace those worries and fears with an understanding of God's unconditional love. To shift my focus from what's scaring me to all the things God is and does—and to know what that means for me as His child.
Besides the healing I shared earlier, I also found these ideas really helpful when I was trying to figure out where to go to university. There were financial issues to consider—not to mention finding a school where I'd feel comfortable and where I could study what interests me.
There were times when I was pretty scared. I had no idea how everything would work out. But as I replaced my concerns with a trust in God and an understanding that He was the source of all the good in my life, the greatest things started happening. I felt calm enough to trust God's direction about which school was right for me. And not only did I end up finding a place where I could pursue my academic passion, which is Greek and Roman studies (the Classics) and languages, but I was also offered some scholarships unexpectedly, which made it possible for me to enroll.
It's proofs like this that keep me going.
Got a healing to share? A story to tell? WE want to hear from YOU! E-mail us at: jshwrite@csps.com Please put "Journal (For Teens)" in your subject line.
